


Van Gogh

by thetruthrunswild



Series: The Purple Journal [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 16:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetruthrunswild/pseuds/thetruthrunswild
Summary: Why does society romanticize depression through the lighthearted reception of expressions of pain?





	Van Gogh

One of the worst lies  
I have ever been told  
Is that Van Gogh ate yellow paint  
To bring happiness to his soul  
If the story is true- the reason isn't so quaint  
The truth of the matter is he wanted to die.

At some point the depressed  
Were sick of bring trivialized.  
So they made their suffering look pretty  
And now it is glamourized.  
Now their art is open for the world to see  
But the inspiration behind it still gets dismissed.

Sylvia Plath was seriously hurting  
Critics didn't notice until publishing Ariel  
Too little, too late  
Two years after her burial  
An unnecessary loss of a talent so great  
Why didn't you realize before she took her life at thirty?

They love works about death  
Somehow manage to focus only on the beauty  
And ignore all of the pain  
It couldn't have been clearer when Emily  
Said she felt a funeral in her brain  
But nobody knew up to her very last breath.

It's easy to romanticize darkness  
If you've only known light  
You won't understand  
Can't relate to their plight  
It's like drowning in quicksand  
To ignore it is heartless.

They've turned depression into another aesthetic  
Metaphors help keep it vauge  
Keep the suffering disguised  
It's been everything from grey skies to the plague  
But remember the darkness is not all we have to advertise  
Joy can be just- if not more- poetic.


End file.
